Have you come to the conclusion that long form content must play a bigger role in your marketing strategy for 2017?

If so, it’s only natural to be both excited and intimidated at the same time.

On one side of things, you know the benefits all too well:

Provide your readers with valuable advice and guidance.

Boost your website’s search engine rankings (and organic traffic)

Improve your conversion rate.

Conversely, you may have some concerns:

You don’t have the skill and/or time to create long form content.

ou aren’t sure of what you should and should not share with your audience.

You have reservations about what type of content your audience will enjoy.

With so many benefits, you don’t want a few potential drawbacks to hold you down. Instead, there are steps you can take to tackle these challenges head on.

In this post, we’re going to focus on the many types of long-form content that you can create and publish on your blog. As you experiment with each type, you’ll come to understand better what’s providing the best return on investment.

4 Options to Consider

Are you responsible for managing a corporate blog? Do you have questions about the approach you should take in regards to creating long form content?

Rather than him-haw around for the rest of 2017, it’s time to take the leap. Here are four distinct types of long-form content to create:

1. Standard Blog Post

This is the most common type, as it plays out like a traditional blog post.

In addition to detailed and unique text, don’t hesitate to share images, infographics, and video. The more details you include, the better chance there is that your post will stand out from the crowd.

Brian Dean from Backlinko is a master of creating long-form blog posts that outperform the competition. He does this by employing the “Skyscraper Technique.” In short, this includes:

· Finding link worthy content.

· Creating a post that is better than anything else on the subject.

· Sharing the content with the right people (influencers in your space).

Here’s an example of a standard blog post from the Backlinko blog. The content is unique and full of depth, while also including a detailed infographic and screenshots. It’s everything a reader could want.

2. Tell a Story

Even if you enjoy writing, following the same old standard format can become boring.

Why not mix it up by telling a story?

For example, a blogger in the internet marketing niche could provide a firsthand account of how he or she improved their website’s search engine rankings via a particular strategy.

Or maybe you’re a travel blogger. This leads to a variety of opportunity, as you can document every aspect of your many trips.

Conde Nast published a blog post entitled Why You Should Road Trip Through Mexico. While there are many articles on this subject, this one stands out as a result of the personal approach.

If you have a story to tell, don’t hesitate to share your experience with your audience.

3. Conduct an Interview

Do you struggle to create content from scratch? Could you use a push in the right direction?

This is where an interview-style blog post comes into play. With this approach, you don’t need to write all the content. Instead, you simply need to come up with questions for your interviewee to answer.

For instance, this post is approximately 1,000 words. However, the bulk of it comes from an interview with an industry professional.

Taking this approach allows you to be more hands off. Sure, you still have to create an introduction and conclusion, but you don’t have to worry about the “meat” of the post. Instead, you can let your interviewee provide you with the content.